» 2006 » January

Jan Bulis had the game of his life and set some new records last night in the process of a 5-3 Habs win in Philadelphia. Bulis who was supposed to be scratched ended up playing after Sheldon Souray couldn’t start due to an infection. Bulis hit the ice and scored 4 goals on 4 shots.

To put that into perspective, the last time a Canadien scored 4 goals was Brian Savage in 1998. Over 8 years have gone by and that might tell you something about the Canadiens offense. To do it on the road in Philly of all places, that hasn’t been done since 1991 and Kevin Stevens did it with the help of Mario Lemieux in a 9-3 Pittsburgh win.

Perhaps Bob Gainey should threaten to sit each player on a rotating basis for the rest of the year, maybe certain players will wake up. Bulis displayed the kind of game that everyone has been expecting of him this year. After leading the scoring in the Czech league last season Bulis came in confident and with a few more expectations on his shoulders. To date his play has been average but not great like many of the Habs, this night should give him some real confidence and hopefully he can continue on.

Tomas Plekanec continues to impress. Setting up one of Bulis’ goals and buzzing around the ice all night, his injury doesn’t seem to have slowed him down at all. As long as he’s playing like that his ice time should steadily increase. Sometimes he looks like the only player on the ice who cares about playing hockey.

Cristobal Huet got the job done. After the second Flyer goal early in the first it looked like it would be one of those nights. Huet seems to start shaky every time he starts fresh and after a few periods or a couple consecutive games seems to find his zone. He kept the Canadiens in the game which is what a goalie is supposed to do. Gainey will be pressured to start him against Ottawa tonight but will also feel the pressure to ‘get Theodore going’. I’m not sure if Ottawa is the place to start a unconfident shaky goaltender.

Does anyone else think that Glenn Healy is the worst color commentator working in the game today? The amount of incoherent babble and self-serving crap that comes out of his mouth is absurd.

NOTE TO GLENN: You were a terrible backup goalie and you are even worse at commenting on hockey. You don’t know as much as you think you do and no one cares about anything you say.

A win in Ottawa tonight would be surprising. It would put them back in 8th spot tied with Atlanta and with games in hand. The Canadiens are 2-0 in the last 2 with Ottawa but haven’t won there on the road. Without Markov they are half as skilled and if Souray is out again then it could be ugly. Then again, no one thought Montreal would beat Philly. Will Ivanans dress tonight? Ivanans vs Chara II? Habs Blog vs Glenn Healy ?